


walk light down the wires

by misandrywitch



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Ice cream!, arson!, friendship!, the romance is background this is a fic about RITA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:25:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11927625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: There's a certain kind of knowledge you settle into, when you've known someone for over a decade. This far down the line, Rita can't imagine things any other way.or - all those times Juno could count on Rita.





	walk light down the wires

**Author's Note:**

> title's from 'linda blair was born innocent' by the mountain goats
> 
> this fic really needs a "+1" & i'm open to suggestions. pitch me. one time juno steel had rita's back. a hundred times. give me the best idea you've got maybe i'll write it.
> 
> junosteeled.tumblr.com xo

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Rita applied to work with the Hyperion City Police Department, she thought it would be an adventure. Cops in the movies are always having heated, public conversations about the juicy details of their cases, or their lives, or the lives of their sexual partners, or the people they wish were their sexual partners. Cops in movies are always chasing bad guys down, resplendent in uniform, guns blazing and sirens going. Cops in movies always look like movie stars - and Rita knows that movie stars and cops don’t have loads in common but she will profess to being a little bit disappointed by the general day-to-day hygiene of the people who work in the downtown precinct she gets assigned to.

Rita’s not an idiot, and she knows that real life isn’t always like the movies and that things hardly live up to their silver screen expectations. 

“See, the way I see it,” she told Franny, several margaritas deep, the evening before her first day of work at the HCPD, “is that my life until this point has been all but adventure-less. Adventure-free.”

“Adventure repellent,” Franny suggested. 

“Exactly!” Rita agreed. “So I know that the HCPD isn’t gonna be a thing like  _ CSI Olympus Mons,  _ but it’s gotta have more adventure in it than I’ve currently got. Right?”

“Well,” Franny had looked at her skeptically, though her face had a naturally skeptical cast to it, or that could have been the margaritas. “It depends on your definition of adventure, I guess. I mean, it’s Hyperion City. It isn’t going to be dull but you may have your life threatened.” 

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Rita had said, decisively. “And then someone beautiful will swoop in and save the day and it’ll be romantic and fantastic! Just imagine it!”

They had imagined it. It was glorious. That could have been the margaritas. 

Rita regrets the margaritas. She doesn’t regret getting hired by the HCPD, exactly, because they’ve got a great working coffee machine and people drink booze in the office after 5 and a great deal of gossip about the detectives and sergeants and their love lives and cases trickles down to the secretaries and tech support. 

“I need all of this digitized.” The detective - a man with a shock of red hair and a scowl whose name Rita absolutely should remember but never does - shakes a box of papers in her direction. Rita has no idea why he’s even working off of printed papers at all. Rita doesn’t know why he can’t work the scanner by himself, or why he bothered to print this out if he wants it all digitized again later. “And I need it done by tonight. I’ve got to present all this evidence to the captain tomorrow morning and I need it to be laid out in a way that makes sense. Do you understand?”

“How do you want it?” Rita eyes the box and puts some popcorn into her mouth. “I mean, I can’t know how you wanna lay it out ‘til I know what it is.”

“It isn’t any of your business.” 

“Then I’ll do a pie chart. Sound good?”

“I need it in a map.“ The detective’s scowl deepens. 

“Ohhhh,” Rita munches more popcorn. “You want the data points on an overlay of the city? What about scale? Any landmarks? Measure distance? Embedded images?” 

“Just get it done,” the detective snaps. “And go bother Steel with any questions, okay? He’s down in lockup dealing with some junkie drunk and disorderly. And file the paperwork too, right?” 

“You got it,” Rita says. She waits until he’s stomped off back towards the elevator to stick her tongue out, and it makes her feel better but only a little bit. “Nasty, nasty, nasty,” she mutters, for good measure, and then starts digging through the paperwork. 

It’s easier going than the detective made it sound and Rita spends twenty minutes plotting data points on a map of Hyperion City. Well, if she’s being honest she spends about ten minutes plotting data points and the next ten minutes sifting through the digital images that accompany the case file, adding a few of them to the map for reference. He didn’t tell her not to, she reasons, and if someone hands you a case file they can’t exactly expect that you’re not gonna read it. 

They’re break-ins of some kind or another. All pictures of big fancy rooms with lots of stuff. Less interesting than she would have hoped; Rita considers hacking into the Chief’s personal email after this to see if her divorce is still ongoing. 

It’s ten minutes afterwards that Rita notices something strange.

She stares at her screen. She moves the map around some. She stares some more. Then, sighing, she gets up to go down to lockup and find Detective Steel. 

Rita hears him before she sees him, which she understands is pretty usual based on his reputation.

“I might believe that for half a second if it came from literally anyone else,” Steel’s voice is saying, loudly. The woman who works at the lockup desk waves Rita through and rolls her eyes. 

“Tell him to shut it,” she says, as Rita passes, holding her computer, “and stop flirting with the detainees.” 

“I heard that!” Steel yells. “And I am not!”

“Coulda fooled me,” says a woman’s voice, and Rita passes through a door and around a corner and is momentarily stunned - no blindsided - no starstruck - at what she sees.

Detective Steel’s compact with expressive shoulders that don’t quite carry the HCPD uniform like they’re comfortable in it. Rita’s seen him around before and he’s famous - or infamous - for his sharpshooting and also for running his mouth. But her eyes skim right over him to the woman leaning against the lockup door. Dark hair, smudged eye makeup, dark clothes, a real dark smile on her face. Rita does a double-take. Then a triple one. 

“Cassandra Kanagawa!” She shrieks, when she’s sure she isn’t dreaming. “I am such a huge fan, of yours, huge, huge! I watched your last special probably forty five times, I loved it so much - “ 

“Look, Cass,” Juno Steel’s eyebrows are up in his hairline. “You got a fan.” 

“Millions of people watch my streams,” Cassandra Kanagawa, for it is indeed Cassandra Kanagawa in the HCPD lockup in the middle of the night, says drily. “You’re probably the only person in Hyperion City who doesn’t, Juno.” 

“And yet I’m still getting by,” Juno says and Cassandra Kanagawa pulls a face at him. It’s a funny kind of interaction, like they’re friendly, and Rita files that away to chew over later for at the moment she’s on a mission.

“Detective Steel!” She blurts. “Came down here to find you!”

“What’s up?” Juno says. 

“Okay, listen,” Rita holds the computer out in front of her and Detective Steel blinks at it. “I’ve been inputting these data points that Detective Macnamara asked me to - “

“For the Quan case?” Juno is frowning now, trying to follow the movement of the computer as Rita waves it around. 

“I don’t know!” Rita snaps. “For whatever this is! And I noticed something really weird, and Detective Macnamara told me to come down here to find you cause you were in lockup if I noticed anything, and now Cassandra Kanagawa is here and are you friends with Cassandra Kanagawa because that’s the coolest thing I’ve heard in forever!” 

“I’m improving your reputation,” Cassandra grins and sways a little unsteadily against the door. Rita notices for the first time that she doesn’t look well. She looks pretty ill, actually, and not as happy as she looks on TV though still very pretty, as far as Rita’s concerned. 

“Not friends, exactly,” Juno glares at Cassandra before turning back to Rita. “What is it? What’s your name again? Sorry, I know where you sit upstairs but  - “

“It’s Rita,” Rita says impatiently. “These are break-ins, right? All over the city?” 

“Yeah,” Juno says. “Two are also homicides. I think they’re connected, Macnamara thinks I’m nuts. Course, he always thinks I’m nuts so that’s not really a change from any other day. He wanted that data to disprove my theory that there’s something significant about where they happened.” 

“Well there is!” Rita says dramatically, and shoves the computer in Juno’s direction.

“Wait, what am I looking at?” 

“You ever seen  _ The Riddle of the Sands,  _ Detective Steel?” 

“Uh,” Juno says blankly. “No.”

“I have,” Cassandra says suddenly. “Cause Dad’s in it. When he was twenty or something. You’re not missing much.” 

“It’s not a great movie,” Rita admits, “but there’s this bit, okay, cause it’s all about this guy who’s trying to find his missing wife and she’s been missing for ages but he keeps getting these mysterious clues and postcards and stuff from her! From all across the city! And he goes looking, right, cause he misses her so bad and he’s desperate to find her and tell her he still loves her, and he thinks she’s got a secret. She does have a secret, you find out later that she killed someone! But when he’s looking for her he realizes that all the postcards she sends have addresses on them and they’re all in a big line across the city and this is just like that.” 

“Uh,” Juno blinks at her. “Come again?”

“She’s saying all the addresses of places that got hit lead somewhere,” Cassandra says, sounding bored. “Right?” 

“Right! I knew you were just as smart as you look on TV.” 

“I like her, Steel. Be nice.” 

“They lead somewhere - “ Juno squints down at the comms screen and follows the line of data points with his eyes. “Oh my God.” 

“I ain’t crazy, right?” Rita says, a little desperately because there’s a great possibility she just made this up because this job is so boring. 

“Maybe, but I also think you’re a genius.” Juno looks up at her. He’s sincere - not mean, not annoyed. A little bloodshot around the eyes but sincere. “You’ve just figured out where he’s gonna hit next.” 

“I did?” 

“Yeah, Rita, you did.” 

“Oh,” Rita says. “Good for me. Should I call Detective Macnamara?”

“Absolutely not,” Juno says emphatically. “I’m gonna solve this one right under his nose and prove him wrong. I guess I better stake the place out, maybe set up a patrol in the neighborhood to keep an eye out - well come on, don’t just stare at me. Get in the car!” 

“What, me?” 

“Do you have plans?” 

Rita has to do paperwork. Stakeouts are not in her job description. 

“I need to grab a snack first,” she says firmly. “And I can’t get in trouble for this. And I gotta file this paperwork right after. Wow, a stakeout? Are they exciting?” 

“Not as exciting as one might think. You serious? This isn’t sitting at a desk watching soaps and hacking the Captain’s email account, which I’m pretty sure is what you do all day.” 

“It’s so boring!” Rita blurts out, before she can stop herself. She gets so emphatic she almost drops the computer, and Juno catches it. “It’s just endless stacks of paperwork that goes nowhere with guys that don’t listen or even look twice in your direction or even say thank you, I mean who doesn’t say thank you? And if it’s not that then it’s someone bugging me asking how they work the printer or the copier! The copier. This isn’t the 21st century, Detective Steel, when the copier doesn’t work you just whack it a few times ‘til it does but they don’t believe me, oh no, gotta make me do it for ‘em every time. And when I do got a suggestion they never listen to me, especially that Macnamara. Detective Steel, it’s boring. I’m bored. This case? Not boring.”

“In that case,” Juno says, and he smiles, “I think you better get in the car. Cass - sleep it off,” Juno directs this to Cassandra, who sticks her tongue out again.

“Fuck off, Steel,” she says. “I’m calling my lawyer.”    


“Tell him I send my love,” Juno says, and he starts to head towards the door, motioning for Rita to follow him. Alive, activated, he’s all concentrated energy and an intense willful determination. 

“Hey Steel!” Cassandra yells after him. “See you Friday?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it!” he yells back as he heads towards the stairs. 

“Nice to meet you Miss Kanagawa ma’a!” Rita blurts out, then she grabs the laptop and follows Juno back into the office. 

 

Stakeouts, Rita has heard, can last hours. Days, even. There’s something futile and romantic about camping out for ages on end like soldiers in a foxhole waiting for news. 

There is nothing futile or romantic about the inside of Detective Juno Steel’s cramped maroon car, which is missing a bumper and probably leaking fuel and is crammed full of takeout cartons and empty glass bottles. But Rita makes the best of it. 

And anyway, they only have to wait an hour and a half, which is just long enough for Rita to stop snacking and start getting hungry again. She opens her mouth to complain and Juno slaps his hand right over it and points towards the alley of the building they’re watching.

“Is that him?” Rita, muffled, asks. 

“Think so,” Juno says. He wriggles in the carseat to tuck his blaster into the back of his belt, which Rita knows isn’t regulation HCPD attire but it looks much more dashing so she doesn’t say anything. “He’s just gone inside. You stay here, okay? Keep your head down and the lights off.” 

“I’ll come with you,” Rita says, and she knows she sounds nervous and a little unconvincing.

“It’s okay,” Juno says. “Good of you to come along at all. I always fall asleep doing these things if I’m not drunk already.” He opens the car door quietly and slides out, nondescript in back, then shuts it and heads towards the door the shadowy figure had just slipped through. Rita watches, her heart beating hard, as he vanishes inside. 

A minute slides by, like toffee. Then two. Then Rita notices the blinking red eye of the security camera high up on the side of the building and four things happen almost at the same time.

One, she recognizes the make and model of the camera.

Two, she hazards a guess to the security system wired up inside, which is programmed to silently alert the police after entry is detected.

Three, she begins a kind of internal countdown to the amount of time that’s passed and the likelihood of that alarm currently signaling cops, on duty cops, to this location.

Four, she gets out of the car.

She doesn’t even realize she gets out of the car, she just does it. She takes a single moment to ask herself, in Franny’s voice because Franny’s not exactly the voice of reason in their friendship but she definitely asks the right questions, “Are you really doing this, Rita?”

“Yes, Franny. I’m gonna save the day,” Rita says.

“Alright, Rita, but don’t get caught.”

“I will not get caught,” Rita says. And then she runs towards the door.

Well, jogs. 

She doesn’t see Juno but she does see a security console mounted on the wall, so she makes a beeline towards it. There’s a built-in failsafe, a signal sent to some security company or the cops themselves if the alarm isn’t deactivated in a certain time frame. It’s a complicated setup, sure, but it’s not a complicated program and Rita bends over the keyboard, typing furiously, watching the numbers tick down. 

She hits enter, gets an angry buzzing sound as response. Her palms slide over the keyboard, sweaty, and her pulse is high against her temple. There is a reason, Rita berates herself, why the people who do this in-the-field nonsense are trained for probably all sorts of things, like hand sweat prevention and adrenaline management and kung fu. 

Another buzzer. The number on the screen grows smaller. Rita doesn’t swear very often but she swears now, keeps typing.

And then, behind her, a voice.

“Hey!” Someone yells. “Step away from that console!” 

Rita doesn’t. Rita hits enter a third time. The numbers stop - and all the lights go out. 

“Uh,” Rita says, in the dark, “didn’t mean to do that.” She says it half a second before someone runs into her from behind. 

She screams. In the dark, all things considered, it feels like the only appropriate response.

Someone else screams too. And then falls over something. 

Rita opens her mouth to scream a second time, just for good measure because this whole situation is really very tense, but then the other voice starts swearing and she recognizes it. 

“Detective Steel?” she whispers. 

“Rita?” Juno hisses. “Is that you? You turned all the lights off?”

Rita fumbles for her comms and clicks the flashlight on. Juno’s face is illuminated, all weird shadows and his heavy eyebrows. 

“I turned the security system off!” Rita says. “And the lights with it, I guess. You gonna just lay there on the floor, Detective Steel?” She extends a hand and hauls him up.

“You - you turned the security system off?” 

“Well, sure,” Rita says. “It’s one of those new Syberteck ones, you know. They cost a ton of money but once you get past the firewall it ain’t hard to shut ‘em off.” 

“I couldn’t figure out how to shut it off,” Juno says, slowly. “I was gonna try and outrun it.”

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rita says. “They only give you a minute and a half even though the timer says ten! It’s to trick you.”

“What department do you work in again?” Juno squints at her for a second, the light shifting around on his face.

“Data processing and administration,” Rita says.

“Not - uh - the bomb squad?”

“No, but I went on a date with a lady on the bomb squad last week! Great hands. Terrible conversationalist though.” 

“How the hell did you learn to do - that?” Juno gestures with his blaster at the console. Rita shrugs.

“Y’know,” she says. “You pick it up. It’s nothing, really. Had a lot of time on my hands as a kid I guess, and my ma always used to bring me along with her to the office when the schools shut down during the war. People keep interesting things in their email accounts, Detective Steel. Also, you can’t watch the really good movies on the streams when you’re a kid unless you know a way around it.

“Huh,” Juno says, and he scratches his chin. He looks like he’s about to say something else, but then there’s a noise behind them in the dark.

It sounds like a crash. Like someone running into a doorframe after knocking over a giant metal trashcan, maybe filled with cowbells. It’s the loudest thing in the room. Maybe the loudest thing for miles around. 

Rita screams. Juno screams. Rita flings herself nondiscriminately in his direction and he leaps about a foot in the air and their legs get tangled and they both keep screaming for a half a second before they hear footsteps, and abruptly shut up.

“Bet that was your suspect,” Rita whispers, her heart in her mouth.

“Yep,” Juno says. She can feel his pulse through the palm of his hand, which is gripping her upper arm.

“Detective Steel? You want me to call HCPD?” 

“No,” Juno says firmly, and his fingers relax. “Scared the shit right out of me. Which way did he go? Can you get the lights back on?” 

“Maybe,” Rita doubles over to get her breath back before straightening to poke at the console. The lights hum back to life. Juno leans against the wall for half a second before drawing his blaster again. “Detective Steel?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I think I’m gonna stick with boring for a while,” Rita says. “This is terrible for my complexion.” 

“Too bad,” Juno straightens, lifts the blaster, smiles. “Cause you did a hell of a job just now.” 

“Really?” Rita stands up too. The little light from her comms makes Juno’s grin wide and exciting, all teeth. 

“Yep,” he says. “Get the hell out of here, somewhere safe. If you excuse me, I’m going to go catch a criminal now.”

His grin gets an inch bigger, like there’s something exciting about running into certain and unknowable danger with no backup and no plan, and then he turns and takes off towards the back hallway. 

“Good luck!” Rita yells at his retreating back, and she thinks she sees his hand wave for just a second before he vanishes, shoulders square and determined and a little manic. 

It’s only then that Rita mops her forehead and heads towards the front door and the waiting car. She needs a milkshake. Or ten. She’s earned them, as far as she’s concerned, even if the only people who will ever know that are herself and Hyperion City’s most ill-behaved detective. 

He needs a new car, that’s for sure. A stylist. Maybe a shower. An attitude adjustment if he doesn’t want to get fired, or a new line of work if he does. Lots of people aren’t cut out to be cops in Hyperion City, because being a cop in Hyperion City is sometimes more about who you know or owe or who owes you than it is about doing the right thing. Rita’s not an idiot. People think she is, but she’s not. She knows what goes on in the office, the source of unnamed deposit slips and invoices, the doors left unlocked or case files lost. 

Juno Steel, Rita thinks, as she scouts out her comms for diners nearby that are open at this hour, is not a particularly great cop but he is, all things considered, a pretty nice guy. And one of those things counts for a whole lot more, if anybody asks her for her opinion on the subject. 

And she had thought, just for a moment as she watched his shoulders disappear down that hallway all in black with his blaster clutched in his hand and no plan to speak of, that there was something real heroic about him. Something she’s never really seen in anyone else. Maybe. Just a little.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I really think,” Franny says over the phone, “that this is gonna work out great. Everything’s pointing towards a roaring success, baby. Your horoscope says so!” 

“It hasn’t really been wrong before,” Rita says, “except for that one time when you suggested I invest in plutonium manufacturing and then that factory blew up.” 

“Well, I couldn’t have predicted a factory was gonna go sky-high could I!” Franny says. “Really, Rita. After everything you’ve told me about this guy, and seeing his ad this morning, and you know you’re miserable with your new job and you weren’t exactly over the moon about the police force but, man, you always had good stories.” 

“I did have good stories,” Rita checks the neon street sign against her directions, makes a left-hand turn into a bypass tunnel, cuts down two levels and nabs the nearest parking spot she can find. It’s a bit of a crooked parking job but it will have to do. “And private detectives gotta have even better stories than cops, right?” 

“Absolutely,” Franny says, and then there’s some hollering in the background, which probably means Franny’s on the phone at her desk again when she should be working, so Rita lets her go. 

Rita gets out of the car, smoothes her skirt. Fall in Hyperion City is kind of like any other season in Hyperion City, except when you close your eyes you can kind of imagine the breeze is autumnal and crisp, and it gets cold at night. Rita does closer her eyes, for half a second, before checking her hair in the window of her car and marching towards the office door that says, printed on a tiny sign that’s small enough you’d probably miss it if you weren’t looking, “Juno Steel: Private Eye.” 

So, Rita quit her job. On a whim, mostly, though when she thinks about it now it doesn’t feel like a whim. It feels more like the inevitable conclusion to years of bullshit and those assholes from tech support yelling at her for downloading music on the HCPD intranet and the bad coffee and the questionable pay and the dress code and the tedium, oh God the tedium. 

She made a bit of a scene about it, which was fun. 

But temping’s not much better, and contracting tech support’s tedious and repetitive, and Rita had been contemplating becoming a nun or maybe an actress over breakfast this morning when a tiny and unobtrusive ad had popped up into her feed. She’d almost missed it. It feels like a sign. 

Could have been a bigger sign, with nicer font and maybe some glitter, but one takes what one can get and there’s always room for improvement. 

And now here she is, realizing the elevator doesn’t work, climbing a few flights of stairs, knocking on a door, and finally getting fed up of knocking and just opening the door. 

“Detective Steel?” she says, slowly. There’s no answer so she bites the bullet and walks inside. 

Rita blinks and stares around the room, not sure which way to look first because it’s untidy and crammed - unopened boxes, untidy shelves, an empty filing cabinet that looks sad and lonely in the clutter.

The front room is empty, so Rita makes her way gamely through a doorway into a room in the back - desk, more boxes, a flickering screen projector, an ancient computer console.  

“Come back later,” a muffled voice says from behind the desk crammed into one corner of the room. “Not taking cases right now. Busy.”

“Mister Steel?” Rita asks. 

“That’s what my door says, don’t it? Said come back later,” Juno’s voice says, sounding crankier. Rita decides to be undeterred and walks around the desk to see the hunched back and shoulders of the cop-turned-detective, digging through a box of what looks like photocopied pieces of paper. 

“Mister Steel!’ Rita repeats. “It’s me! Rita! Remember?” 

Juno turns and starts to stand, but puts his hand down on the edge of the box so it topples sideways, sliding into another similar stack of papers. They look like old case files, copies of them, and Rita wonders for a moment how he got them before she gets a good look at Mister Steel himself. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Juno asks, scowling. “The HCPD sending tech support to shake people down these days?” 

When Juno Steel was HCPD Detective Steel he never exactly looked put together, or well-rested, or particularly well-fed - but he’d looked good in his uniform and usually didn’t show up to work with an unshaven face. Private detective Juno Steel looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Bloodshot eyes, three days of stubble at least, the collar on his dark jacket askew and smelling - Rita wrinkles her nose - of whiskey. That could be the empty bottle balanced on the edge of the desk, of course. 

“No,” Rita says. “Well, maybe they are. Not a bad idea - I’ve seen the tempers on some of those programmers, let me tell you, they could definitely blow off some steam now and then somewhere outside of the office - but I would hardly know ‘cause I don’t work for the HCPD anymore! I’m here to see you, Mister Steel.” 

“Oh,” Juno looks a little abashed. “Well, you coulda called.”

“I did! After I saw that ad this morning, but nobody answered the phone, and no offense but that ad was not enticing whatsoever - most people wanna be able to set up an appointment through their comms, and you need something with a little more zing to it! Juno Steel! Finding answers to life’s persistent questions! No problem too big, no distance too far, no - oh, well, we can work on that. But when you didn’t pick up I figured I’d just swing by and let you know, cause if there’s one thing I know about private eyes it’s that they’ve always got a sidekick. Like Vic Sharpe and his plucky young assistant Vera! You ever seen those ones Mister Steel? I loved those when I was a kid - especially the one where they get kidnapped and hung over the water and that bad guy cuts Sharpe in the hand so he’s bleeding and the sharks and circling below him and he builds that bomb out of laundry detergent and an unopened cola - “

“Uh,” Juno is blinking at her like she’s grown another head. Rita self-conscious checks to make sure her hair isn’t totally a disaster. “What are you talking about?” 

“Weren’t you listening?” Rita rolls her eyes. “I’m here to be your secretary, Mister Steel!” 

Juno stares at her. She grins, and extends her hands in a kind of “ta-da!” motion.

“I don’t need a secretary,” Juno says, finally.

“Uh,” Rita looks around the room - the shuttered blinds, papers strewn all across the floor, the untidy shelves and bulletin board covered in cards and string. “No offense, Mister Steel, but it kinda looks like you do. At least to open a window.” 

Did you get fired from the HCPD?”

“I quit.” 

“Good for you,” Juno says. “But I’m not even hiring a secretary. Where’d you get that idea?”

“Well, I’ve been doing temp work but it’s so dull, Mister Steel, I can’t even put into words how dull it is it’s just - “ Rita gestures with her arms to express the depth and expansiveness of the dullness of her current work, and almost smacks her arm on another stack of boxes, “And then I saw your ad this morning! And I thought - “

“That I need a sidekick.”

“Yeah! Every private eye’s got a sidekick.”

“I don’t,” Juno says shortly. “And I’m not looking for help. It’s about the last thing in the world I want right now.” 

“Aw Mister Steel, you’re just saying that.”

“I’m not. And, look, I don’t have time for this right now. I’m on a case, actually. To make money. Which I owe a great deal of to some people who will have my hide if I don’t pay them back. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had about enough of whatever this is for today and I’ve got a lot of shit to do before it gets dark.” He scoops up some of the papers and drops them haphazardly on the desk, then starts for the door. “Nice to see you.” 

“Testy, testy,” Rita says. “You’ve gotten a lot crankier since last time I saw you, Mister Steel.”

“I hear getting older does that to you,” Juno is shrugging on a coat. In the light from the open door he looks even more exhausted - or hungover. It’s hard to tell. 

Out of defiance, Rita pauses to straighten the pile of papers on the table. Juno glares at her and nods, pointedly, at the door.  

“Alright, alright,” Rita says, and marches past him with her nose pointed in the air. “I’m just saying it seems like you could use a hand.” 

“See you around, Rita,” Juno says, and he shuts the office door and locks it, and heads off down the stairs without waiting for her. 

Rita watches him go, frowning. She hadn’t expected him to say yes right away - Mister Steel’s the kind of fella who needs warming up and it has been a while since last they saw each other - but she doesn’t quite know what to do with his uncompromising disinterest. At least she gave it a good shot, put herself out there, took a chance. 

It isn’t her fault that Mister Juno Steel doesn’t seem to know what’s good for him. 

 

She doesn’t mean to follow him. Really, she doesn’t. It’s an accident, because Rita forgot where exactly she parked her car and ends up circling the block on foot and by the time she’s back to where Juno’s office building is she sees him, coat collar up, hurrying out of a shop and across the street. 

She’s looking for her car, really. Sometimes when you lose something it helps to stop looking for it until it pops right up at you where you weren’t expecting it. There really is a chance she parked down the street that Juno hurries down, and Rita figures it’s her due diligence to go down that way and check. 

It’s not her fault she watches Juno go into an old warehouse building down the block as she searches for it. Nor it is her fault that she thinks, quite rationally, that the last time she watched Juno Steel go into a building by himself he almost got into some serious trouble. 

The building is a warehouse. Through the treated glass it looks drafty and empty, probably abandoned. Storage or weaponry during the war, or something similar - Rita’s eye catches the hulking, plastic-covered silhouettes of those armed military turrets that used to line civilian streetways and the entrances to aircraft hangers and have all mostly been repurposed to protect the mayor’s office and the Kanagawa’s mansion and the water treatment plant downtown. 

Rita can see Juno cross the room, shoulders up around his ears. He stops towards the center and waits, and a minute or two later someone comes out of a back room to meet him. A tall man, wearing a long beige coat. He looks well-dressed and put together, where Juno looks defensive and a little shabby, and Rita immediately distrusts him. People who dress like that can’t be trusted. Nobody with good intentions has that kind of time. 

Rita can’t hear anything they’re saying but they talk back and forth for a few minutes. Then it gets more agitated. Juno points at something, throws his hands up. The man he’s talking to, whose face Rita can see, frowns. He says something sharply. Juno crosses his arms. Then uncrosses them, defensively. 

“You probably outta mind your own business, find your car and go home,” Rita tells herself. “If Mister Steel catches you out here he’s gonna be real mad. Real mad.” 

Juno’s yelling more and the man looks really angry now, his hands on his hips.

“Don’t get involved,” Rita tells herself, “it’s just asking for trouble, you know it’s just asking for trouble and what are you gonna do, anyway? You don’t know kung fu. Mister Steel’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself.” 

It’s then that the man in the beige coat throws a punch. Juno swerves just in time that it doesn’t catch his chin, tosses one of his own that’s poorly aimed. It knocks into the guy’s shoulder, and he grabs Juno’s wrist. Juno shakes him with some difficulty. He’s faster, but beige trenchcoat’s much taller where Juno is short and stocky. 

“He can take care of himself,” Rita repeats, dubiously. 

Beige trenchcoat grabs Juno’s jacket collar and lifts him an inch or so off the ground. Juno knees him in the stomach and rolls, but the guy gets up faster than Rita thought possible and he seizes the nearest object to him, a wrench, and throws it towards Juno’s head.

“Oh, god damn it,” Rita says, even though she was brought up in a good household and she doesn’t like to swear, and she takes off. 

Nobody notices her slip in through the front door of the warehouse building - beige trenchcoat is too busy wailing on Juno and Juno is too busy yelling and throwing his arms around to even look in her direction. Rita dashes over to one of the machines, dusty and quiet and neatly stored away, and slides the plastic cover off as quietly as she can. It raises a cloud of dust as it drops and she clamps her hand over her mouth to stop her sneeze. 

She jabs at the switch in the back that she’s pretty sure turns the thing on, and nothing happens. It’s a turret system with both manual and automatic controls, and Rita has never seen one before but she knows, conceptually, that it should light up and allow her to, if she wanted, point it in a direction and shoot it. But there are no lights, no sound, no movement. No power.

“Gosh fucking shit,” Rita hisses, and she yanks at the panel at the back of the turret’s head right as Juno yells, strangled and painful, behind her. 

Rita pops open the screen and then the control panel on her comms system strapped to her wrist, pulling out a few carefully coiled wires. She does the same to the panel at the back of the turret, feeling around blindly because she can’t risk actually turning the thing and accidentally toppling it over. She unstraps the comms from her wrist and then carefully, gingerly, she winds one wire together, and then the other. It’s definitely breaking every safety rule she ever was taught but there isn’t time for that kind of thing right now. 

The machine, suddenly juiced from the little battery pack inside her comms, whirrs to life, and Rita grabs onto the handle on the back, spins the top, and points. 

“Hey!” she shrieks. “Over here, buster!” 

Beige trenchcoat stops, wrench raised, and turns. There’s blood on it, Rita notices, and she thinks for half a second she’s going to hurl. 

“Not so big now are you!” she hollers, like the people in movies do. “Put it down, mister. Stat!”

“You even know how to fire that thing?” the man asks.

“I’m willing to learn!” Rita shouts back, which she thinks is very impressive on the fly.

“With your friend right here? Not afraid you might hit him?” He gestures at Juno, who is flat on his back on the ground looking rather desperate. 

“Well,” Rita considers, “I was gonna set it to stun. So he’d have a headache but he’d be fine.” 

“I don’t think they make a stun setting for those things,” the man says. 

“Pretty sure they do,” Rita says. “You think I should check? It is an older model and I wouldn’t wanna kill you.”

“Yeah, why don’t you,” the man says, and he turns back to Juno just in time to see Juno getting to his feet. 

“Lucky for me,” he says, and spits blood from his mouth - it’s all over his face and Rita doesn’t know exactly where it came from and she’s nervous to find out, “this has a built-in stun setting.” 

And he grabs a wrench and whacks the guy, hard, on the head. He falls over sideways, out cold. 

Rita collapses sideways, holding onto the turret to stop herself from falling over completely. Across the room, Juno staggers a little. 

“Did you see that!” Rita yells, suddenly elated and dizzy with it. “Mister Steel! Did you see what I just did! I’m willing to learn! That’s a great line, right? Right?” 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Juno gasps, and spits more blood onto the concrete as he takes a few slow steps in her direction. “You just came outta nowhere, you - “

“I followed you!” Rita yells. “Which I know is really rude, I get told I’m nosy and I’m willing to admit I could work on that - “

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Juno wheezes. “You just saved my ass and all my teeth. You followed me?” 

“I know,” Rita winces, “I know, I - “

“Step away from that thing!” someone hollers behind Rita, and she turns around so fast she falls over. 

There’s a second person in the warehouse, one Rita didn’t notice in all the excitement. A woman holding a blaster, which is pointed right at Rita. 

“Alright!” Rita squawks, and scoots a few inches away from the turret on her butt. “It’s there, I’m here, please don’t shoot me please, please!” 

“How the hell’d you get that thing to turn on?” the woman demands. “They’re not supposed to turn on until they’re charged up but it turns out anyone can waltz in here and power ‘em up? Is that a defect? Who the hell are you?” She brandishes the blaster.

“Nobody,” Rita says quickly, “honest! I just gave it a little juice and it popped right on. A kid could do that if they knew what they were looking at!” 

“I think you’re gonna have to come with me,” the woman says, “and answer some more questions.” 

Rita starts to panic. She considers running, or trying to make it back to the turret, but all she can think about, all she can see, is the woman’s blaster trained right at her face. She won’t make it two inches without getting zapped right between the eyes.

“You’re awfully demanding, aren’t you?” says Juno’s voice, and a second later a beam of light shoots over Rita’s shoulder and hits the woman right in the chest. She falls over, the second goon down in as many minutes. 

“What do you know?” Juno says. “They do have a stun setting after all.” 

“Good to know,” Rita says breathlessly, her heart restarting with a tremendous heave. Juno leaves the turret and crosses over to her, offers a hand to pull her up off the floor. Up close, Rita can see his eye is black and puffy and there’s a goose-egg on his head, probably where the blood’s coming from. That and his split lip. “That fella did a number on you, Mister Steel, are you alright?” 

Juno wipes at his face, which is dripping a little. “I’ve looked worse,” he says. “Gonna have a hell of a headache tomorrow but it should’ve been worse and it wasn’t. I told you to fuck off and you followed me and pulled that? How’d you even - those things aren’t supposed to work?” 

Like it can hear them talking, the turret’s lights dim and die with a sad little pop. 

“Oh,” Rita says, “well, I had to get a new comms soon anyway. Those batteries really last for nothing these days.” 

Juno wipes more blood off his face and he stares at her for a long minute.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says finally, and Rita nods for a lack of anything else to say.

 

 

Rita waits, leaning against the desk in Juno’s cluttered office, while Juno scrubs blood out of his hair and off his face. Rita kicks open the tiny office minifridge and finds half a pint of chocolate chip, which she removes for herself, and a giant bag of frozen cloned corn product, which she hands to Juno when he exits the bathroom. With the blood cleared away, she can guess at the messy shiner he’s going to have tomorrow.

“Thanks,” he grunts, and slaps the corn over his eye. “You know, I’m really not looking for a secretary.” 

“I know,” Rita says. “My horoscope this week told me that sometimes the things we really need are things we aren’t even looking for. But you don’t have my birthday, so yours is probably something about headaches.” 

“I didn’t even think about it,” Juno says. “I mean, hiring someone? Feels so hokey. Like I gotta live up to some level of professionalism or something and, I mean, look at me. Not doing great, on the P.I. front.” 

“You knocked out two people today,” Rita says. “That’s pretty good.” 

“They were gonna sell those machines somewhere in the Outer Rim,” Juno winces as he adjusts the bag of corn. “Don’t know how much you know about that political situation but it could’ve caused a hell of a lot of trouble. Now they’ll get impounded by the HCPD, ‘til they need ‘em I guess.” 

“Maybe they’ll use them for schools,” Rita says, which she knows isn’t true.

“Yeah, and I’m the Prince of Mars.”

“Don’t think he’s ever hit anybody over the head with a wrench,” Rita says. 

“And that didn’t scare you off.” 

“Should it?” 

Juno looks at her. It’s not condescending, like people often are, and he isn’t checking her out, like people often do. It’s leveling, Rita thinks. He’s sizing her up. Even under the bruise that’s forming around his left eye he has an incredibly sharp gaze that looks a little out of place in his unshaven hungover face. Rita doesn’t quite know what to do with that, but she thinks about what people do in showdowns in movies, and she just stares back and doesn’t let herself feel small.

It works for about thirty seconds, before she starts laughing. She can’t help it, it’s a reflex or a deflection, and she feels as soon as she starts that she’s done the one thing she shouldn’t have done to make this stick. 

She’s surprised when Juno laughs too.

It pops out of him like it, too, is surprised that someone as surly as that can make that kind of noise and it fades pretty fast but Rita heard it, and Rita likes the sound, and Rita thinks that Juno’s eyes look a little brighter and a little less intense when he shakes his head.

“You know what?” he says, and she braces herself, but optimistically - because if there’s one thing her mother taught her it’s that optimism is a very good look for young ladies and pessimism gives you wrinkles, not that Rita would mind a few wrinkles, they might make her look distinguished and maybe then the man who works at the liquor store around the corner from Franny’s place would stop asking her for her identification when she buys tequila - and waits. 

“Fine,” Juno continues. “On a trial basis, and I reserve the right to decide it isn’t working at any time, and you cannot watch those Northstar streams you always had on in the office, and you really gotta help me figure out why I keep getting mail meant for the psychic upstairs - “

“What?” Rita cuts him off. She doesn’t so much cut him off as scream over him, and Juno isn’t so much interrupted as he is drowned out. “You mean it? You really mean it? You’re not just pulling my leg right now Mister Steel, ‘cause that would be just about the meanest thing you could possibly do - oh but I promise, no Northstar, that show about the twins went downhill last season anyway and I’m only watching it ‘cause it makes me so dang mad - “

“Trial basis,” Juno repeats. “And you gotta help me drum up business. And it’s not gonna be easy. I need someone to make appointments, take notes, keep files, monitor security- takes a lot of work to be a P.I. Who knew?” 

“I’ll do it all,” Rita says fervently. “I’m very organized, Mister Steel. Well, I could be! I’ll learn! I’ll even learn karate and pull you outta trouble!” 

“You don’t need to learn karate, Rita,” Juno says. 

“I’m not gonna let you down,” Rita promises. 

“Trial basis,” Juno says, but he’s looking at her and Rita doesn’t know him well enough to read his expression but it’s not a mean one. “Starting now. We gotta find where the hell that guy who rang my bell ran off to, and fast.”

“Great!” Rita barrels around Juno to sit herself in the chair in front of the aging coms screen, and hits the on-button. The machine coughs to life. She can envision it spewing dust from its vents. Juno stares at her and Rita wiggles her fingers over the keyboard.

“Uh,” Juno says, then shakes his head. “I need a map of the sewers that connect to that warehouse and as much information as we can scrounge up on Etna Industries’ new CEO.” 

The computer is still booting up. “I’m gonna need a new computer, boss,” Rita says, poking at it. “I can’t work under these conditions.” 

“Take it up with HR,” Juno says, and he almost smiles. 

“What’s the password?”

“I wrote it down somewhere over there.”

Rita digs around in the desk until she finds a piece of paper, and she types a name into the console and hits ENTER. It loads. Slowly. 

“Well,” she says. “You gotta pick a password that’s longer than three letters, Mister Steel. It’s called cybersecurity! You want a cup of coffee while this thing warms up? Seems like it was last turned on sometime in the 21st century.” 

“Uh,” Juno had turned to rifle through some files stacked on a chair on the corner. “Sure. Thanks?” 

“You got it, boss,” Rita says, and she gets busy. 

  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Her trial run goes for three months, then a year, then on into two. For a while, Rita wonders if and when Mister Steel will let her know definitively that she was indeed right in her suggestion that he needed a secretary, and then she forgets about it, and just does the work. 

They track down missing kids, they find stolen art, they investigate middle-of-the-night tamperings of electrical equipment. They fight endlessly about when Rita is or isn’t allowed to watch television in the office. They prove a starving actor didn’t kill anyone, and they track a long string of cheating spouses, and they are, by and large, pretty good at it. Together, as a team or a unit. 

“Hey Rita,” Juno says one day - two years, maybe, since she barged into his office, though who counts? “Got a request for HR for you.” 

“You know we don’t really have an HR department, boss,” Rita types at her computer, half listening. 

“Don’t care,” Juno is shoving documents into drawers, less tidily than he should but neater than he used to before her. “Tell ‘em that I’ve made my decision, and you’re in.” 

“Mister Steel,” Rita levels him with a look. “You know I did that myself ages and ages ago.” 

That makes him laugh, which makes her laugh. Always the best days, when Rita can get Mister Steel to laugh, because it’s not something that happens easily. She’s always been happiest putting everything she feels right there on her face for the world to see and Rita knows she’s abrasive sometimes, and that people don’t get it, and that sometimes they laugh at her behind her back. It’s easier to know on their face who she likes and who she doesn’t. 

But Mister Steel’s the dead opposite, in a lot of ways. He carries the things he feels right up against his chest all tied up in layers of snappy comebacks and his brusque, elevated shoulders. He reminds Rita of a whole bunch of guys in a bunch of different movies - but sometimes she thinks those guys in those movies just want to be like Mister Steel, who is the real deal. 

And those guys in those movies never leave their smelly socks around the office or fall asleep at their desks or lock themselves out of their apartments and call her, drunk and cranky, at 2 a.m.

So there are good days, when cases go well and clients are happy and Juno turns on the radio himself in the office, sometimes half-watches Rita’s soaps and comments about how transparent the mystery plotlines are. He almost always guesses the killers in the first ten minutes. 

And there are days that aren’t like that at all, and Rita doesn’t always know what to do when she watches Juno’s shoulders creep up towards his ear, or his eyebrows down towards his eyes, or his hands into fists. Or that big vein in his forehead become visible and get red and puffy and really, he’s gonna have a heart attack and it’ll pop one day and she’ll have to drive him to the hospital all covered in vein juice and it’ll be the worst. 

She can deal with that, though. She’s pretty good at giving as good as she gets when someone’s yelling at her and boy can Juno yell when he sets his mind to it. It’s the days when he just gets quiet, tired around the eyes, drifting towards the bottle of something cheap that lives in his desk drawer and towards melancholy soliloquies Rita usually doesn’t really understand. 

And then there are days like this one, which doesn’t start so much as it continues from the one before it because neither of them go to bed and wake up again, and ends badly. Very badly, actually. 

It happens like this. A kid goes missing. His older brother hires Juno to find him. Rita can see, on Juno’s face, the desire to turn the case down fighting with the inability to say no and watches him closely as he yanks his coat on and stomps out the door. 

So they find him, because that’s what they do and Juno Steel is good at this job, better when Rita’s helping him out. She gets to hack into HCDOT’s traffic cameras, which is pretty exciting, and track the kid’s movements and find out where he is.

And it’s too late. 

And worse than that, they find out it was the brother he was trying to get away from. 

So they call the cops. They give statements. They watch as the brother, swearing, gets hauled into a police cruiser and Rita drives them back to the office and watches as Juno slams a bottle onto the counter and drinks out of it, not even bothering with a glass. 

“Guess we ain’t getting paid today, huh?” She says, and Juno just glowers and chugs. After a second, he pushes the bottle towards her. 

Rita doesn’t drink hard liquor, usually. It gives her a headache, or encourages her to either take her top off or sing loudly in public. But she feels exhausted, and tired and sad, and she can’t stop thinking about the body of the kid lying cold on the floor of the warehouse they’d found him in. 

“I hate this stuff, Mister Steel,” she says. She takes a swig from the bottle and it’s like fire and she coughs. Juno doesn’t even flinch when he takes another swallow. 

“What a waste,” he says, almost to himself. “All of that. What a fucking mess. That guy just gonna - “ He scowls. When Juno really scowls his eyebrows almost touch, right down above his eyes, and his shoulders move in and his jaw gets tight. 

“We got him, Mister Steel,” Rita says. “He’s in lockup right now! That’s a good thing, ain’t it? That’s what we’re supposed to do.” 

“For how long?” Juno snaps. Rita gets the sense that it isn’t directed at her, or even what she said. “He’s gonna use the money he didn’t use to pay us to pay them off, or pay off someone who’s already paying them off, and he’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. Family from Halcyon Park, money to burn. That’s how it always works.” 

“But we got him,” Rita repeats. She knows, of course she does, the ins and outs of how things work in Hyperion City. Sometimes she thinks Juno thinks she doesn’t, but she does. Her hands are chilly - the office gets drafty this time of year. She should have new shutters installed. She should check their air vents. Thieves could crawl up through them, probably, like that one movie - she can’t remember the name. “That counts for something. Don’t it?”

Juno just looks at her. His eyes are tired. “It should,” he says, and then he looks away. “Go home, Rita,” he says to the floor. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Rita turns to go. 

And she pauses before she gets to the door.

“Mister Steel?” she says, and can’t help that she sounds hesitant. 

“You put ‘em in your purse, Rita,” Juno says. “Your keys.” 

“No, I know where my - oh. I did? Thought I left ‘em on the counter. That’s not - Mister Steel.” Rita clears her throat. “You wanna come see a movie with me?”

“What?” Juno’s head pops around to look at her. “A - what?” 

“A movie!”

“Why the hell would I wanna go see a movie? Now? It’s the middle of the night.” 

“There’s a retro place half a dozen blocks from here,” Rita says patiently, “that does double features at all hours. They have the best popcorn, Mister Steel, and these frozen drinks that taste like heaven and make your tongue all blue!” 

“Do I look like the kinda guy who goes to the movies?” the vein on Juno’s forehead is becoming prominent. Somehow that’s better than his bitter, depthless monotone, and Rita feels a little bit of triumph. “Do I look like I wanna go sit in the dark with a bunch of kids who are necking and watch some corny half-assed plotline with, you know, spies and espionage and romance and explosions and fake identities and a convoluted ending? No, I made it sound better than it’s gonna be.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think the one showing tonight is that good,” Rita says. “And you do, for the record, ‘cause you look miserable and I always take myself to the movies when I feel miserable like that.” 

“I always look miserable.”

“Miserable- _ er. _ ”

“Fair point.” He’s still looking at her like he’s trying to puzzle her out, which Rita both loves and hates because people don’t usually give her thought like that at all, so she plunges insistently onward because it’s been a horrible day and the whiskey is burning kind of bright in her stomach and her hands are cold. 

“When I was a kid,” she says, and Juno groans, but a little theatrically so it’s almost funny and so Rita ignores him, “we didn’t have a bunch of money. I mean, who does? Other than people with money, I suppose. But anyway, I always wanted to go to the movies and I never had the cash to and I used to sneak in by climbing in the back window into the employee bathroom of that old theatre near Orion Square Park, you know, the one with that great funny glass doorway and the pizza place upstairs? The latch didn’t shut all the way and so sometimes they’d leave it open rather than jamming it closed so I’d climb up the trash cans and stuff outside to get into the window.” 

“You did that?” Juno is listening, and he almost looks interested. He looks less interested when Rita looks at him, but that’s probably on purpose.

“Sure did,” she says. “And then I dated this fella who worked at the theatre years later so he got me in for free all the time. He always wanted to make out in the middle of the good parts though so it was too much trouble, really. See, ‘cause once you were in through the window you had to guess the passcode for the employee login to get the door open and sometimes that took forever so you’d miss all the previews, and I love the previews. But once you got in they wouldn’t check if you had a ticket, so I would just watch a bunch of movies in a row until it was way too late, then leave through the front door.” 

“Huh,” Juno says. 

“And that was the best bit,” Rita feels determined to finish the story, get to the good bit, “when you’d get your seat and you’d be looking up at the screen, I never really cared what was gonna play as long as it was something different or even something I loved, and the lights would all dim. And everyone in the room is looking up at that screen to see what happens, and they all laugh and cry and get mad at the same time to the best bits. And no matter what was happening out there, being broke or your family or the war or politics or you just got dumped or whatever - for a while none of it would matter. Except whether or not the movie was any good, and what happens to the characters you like, and if the good guys win.” 

Juno blinks at her. 

“Also,” Rita finishes quickly, “there’s a bar in the theatre that makes great Manhattans.” 

“You know what?” Juno says, sounding annoyed, and Rita gets ready to roll her eyes but then she doesn’t, “why the hell not. This day can’t get any worse, I guess.” And he stands, sets down the bottle, and pulls on his coat before she can so much as close her mouth. 

It’s one of those miserably hot Hyperion City nights where the wind comes in from the eastern desert, bitter and gritty. Rita’s wearing a cardigan because she believes in the power of appropriate office attire like cardigans, but she takes it off and puts it into her handbag as they stand in line for their tickets. Juno looks hot even in his shirtsleeves, and he always looks strange and a little out of place without his big jacket on, like seeing a cop not in uniform. His elbows are bare and bony. But the theatre’s close to empty and they’re still selling popcorn at the counter and drinks at the bar. 

“Want some?” she proffers the popcorn, not bothering to keep her voice down because the only other people in the movie theatre are indeed some kids necking in the back.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Juno says, and he stuffs a handful in his mouth and chews with his mouth open. Rita loves that.

“That’s gross,” she says. “Mind your manners, Mister Steel.”

“They cut ‘em from our school curriculum,” Juno says. “Wouldn’t know a manner if I shook hands with it.” It’s a halfhearted response but it sounds closer to how Juno usually sounds, and Rita loves that too, that he’s trying, that he doesn’t want to be caught feeling the way he does. She doesn’t know if she likes it about him, necessarily, but she does love it. 

The movie rolls, a digitized version of what would have once been a film reel according to the history books, and two pairs of eyes look up to watch lights dim and music roll. It’s not a good movie, but it doesn’t matter much. They don’t say anything until it’s halfway over until Juno nudges her elbow. 

“Did you go and hang out at that theatre because you didn’t want to be at home?” Juno asks, mostly muffled around a mouthful of popcorn. 

Rita shrugs. “Yeah,” she says. There isn’t any shame in that, really. “There are loads of us, my cousins and stuff, and no room to yourself. No space to think.” 

“That kid today,” Juno says slowly, “just wanted to be left alone.” It’s dark enough that Rita can’t see his face but she can feel, or maybe she images, how his arm on the armrest gets tense. “Just wanted to get out.” 

“He seemed like a nice kid,” Rita says. “I mean, what we heard about it. ‘Cause we didn’t meet him. ‘Cause he died.” She winces, and shoves a handful of popcorn in her mouth. 

“Had a hell of a good reason to leave. And no reason to go back,” Juno says like he didn’t hear her, which gives Rita a bit of a clue.

“Did you?” she says, and she can feel Juno look at her like he’s surprised she added two and two together and actually came up with the right number. Rita’s not great at math, but she’s not dumb.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. “For a while.” 

On screen, the credits roll and they both watch them. Rita can see the outline of Juno’s face - his nose, the lines around his mouth. 

“At least that guy’s in jail right now,” Rita says, because it feels like the right thing to say. “I know it might not last, but - that’s where he outta be. Where bad guys belong.” 

“Maybe he’ll pay for it, if there’s any luck in the world” Juno says, watching the credits, “but his brother’s dead, and nothing will change that.” 

Rita can’t read the expression on his face.

“See,” Juno says, still watching the screen, “that’s the problem with the real world, Rita, and things that don’t happen in movies.” 

“What is?” she asks, even though she doesn’t really want to know. 

“In real life,” Juno says, “sometimes the bad guys live longer.” 

And he gets up and walks towards the exit of the theatre, leaving Rita to watch the end of the credits by herself. 

He’s not wrong, Rita thinks. Of course he’s not wrong. Mister Steel’s seen enough of the way the world works just in the HCPD alone to know things don’t always have good endings, or even poignant ones. The shows she watches don’t always have good endings either - sometimes they’re sad, and sometimes quite phenomenally bad, but when they are at least there’s someone to blame, someone to direct that anger towards and to send unedited impassioned emails to when she and Franny have had a few margaritas. 

In real life - nobody has narrative control. Nobody bases their decisions on ratings, or feedback, or their own visionary ending. You just live through the storyline you’re tossed and hope that, at the end of it, it’ll mean something good. 

If Rita could, she’d paint a story where she and Mister Steel where the heroes of it, and everything worked out, and the jokes always landed and the supporting cast was all good looking. She knows that isn’t how the world works. 

What she doesn’t think Juno gets, though, is the fact that it also doesn’t matter so much, the fact that the world works in the way it does, because at the end of the day the only person who decides if something did mean something is you. Juno, Rita thinks as she tosses her popcorn and leaves the theatre on her own and walks out into the dusty Hyperion City night, doesn’t seem to know what a good ending looks like. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s looking at.

“That fella,” Rita says, to nobody in particular except the swirls of red dust that buffet the street and the car windshields and the handful of people moving away from the theatre, “needs to watch more movies.” 

 

 

 

 

* * *

  
  


 

 

 

“So you’re saying,” Rita repeats for at least the fifth time, “you ain’t seen him.”

“Hide nor hair,” Vicky of Valles Vicky’s Vixen Valley says, for at least the fifth time. This is only the second time Rita’s spoken to Vicky face-to-face, and the first time without Juno taking the brunt of her keen-eyed scrutiny, and Rita’s not sure if she feels intimidated or terrified or a little turned on.

“Well then,” Rita snaps, “where the hell is he?” 

People don’t really snap at Vicky of Valles Vicky’s Vixen Valley, and she raises an eyebrow half an inch but seems to elect to let it go. Rita is desperate. 

“He’s known to do this,” she says. “You’ve known him just as long as I have, though I guess under different circumstances. If you weren’t already here I’d say check the back bar with Kit ‘cause that’s where he used to plant himself when he was down low - “

“I already have,” Rita grits out. 

“So have I,” Vicky says, and Rita blinks. “Steel’s a real pain in the ass but he is kinda my friend. You sure you’ve checked everywhere? He does have a habit of throwing himself into some kinda hole when he’s feeling some kinda way. Guess the hole in question just isn’t a fun one today. Get it. Hole.”

Over the last three days Rita, and later Rita and Mick Mercury who’s the only person she knows who knows his way around Oldtown, have combed their way through every watering hole between Juno’s office and the edge of the city, and back again.

“I”m sure,” she says, trying to impress with her voice exactly how serious this is. 

“Well, I haven’t seen or heard from him since that shit show the other night. Haven’t seen or heard for much of anyone ‘til today. I am in hot water ‘cause of this thing with Ingrid - I’m gonna have to testify against her. In court! Always figured if I ended up in court it would be on the other side - I don’t got a thing to wear!” 

“Miss Vicky,” Rita leans forward on Vicky’s desk, and Vicky really does blink at her this time because it’s some kind of breach of boundaries, leaning over her desk, but Rita is desperate. It’s been a week. Rita had dropped Juno off at his apartment the night they arrested Ingrid Lake. She’d shown up at the office the next day, waded through emails, watched some TV, and the boss had never arrived. Or even called. Or answered his comms. 

Same thing the next day. 

It’s not something he’s never done before, exactly, vanishing for days on end in the middle of a case, or because something goes wrong. Rita tells herself not to worry, and she gets through a bunch of bills and all her emails, and she has drinks with Franny and goes home. 

And then he leaves her a message.

“I got this message,” Rita says, “and Mister Steel was rambling on about a bunch of stuff but he told me to take the money he’s got stashed in the safe in his office. And to find another job.” 

“Was he joking?” Vicky’s eyebrows creep up.

“And he said he was worried,” Rita says, and then pauses for a second before delivering the clincher, “and he asked for my advice.” 

“Oh,” Vicky says. “Shit. Did you call him back?”

“His comms are disconnected.” 

“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” Vicky uncrosses her arms and frowns. Her frown makes her look less intimidating somehow, because it feels natural and reactionary. 

“He’s my boss,” Rita says. 

“Look, I can put some feelers out,” Vicky says, “but I don’t know what I can tell you. I really haven’t heard from him.” 

“I know you told him something,” Rita says, and Vicky’s frown vanishes to be replaced by a look of surprise. She didn’t think Rita had noticed. “And that something could be the cause of this.” 

“I did,” Vicky says. “But, look. It’s pretty confidential. A contact of mine, one I value. I can’t just go giving his name away. I could already be in the shit ‘cause I let him known Juno needed to talk to him about that Martian bullcrap. Juno ain’t gonna go missing ‘cause he made a phone call.” She looks skeptical about the last part even as she says it.

“If you don’t tell me,” Rita says firmly, “I’m gonna have to call the cops. And I really don’t wanna do that ‘cause they’re dicks.” 

“The cops in this town are gonna throw a party when they hear Juno Steel’s gone missing,” Vicky says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.

Rita crosses her arms. She likes that, as a gesture of how seriously she’s taking this. 

And Vicky sighs. 

“His name’s Green,” she says. “Octavius Green. He’s an off-world importer, a smuggler. Rare shit, mostly. Sometimes dangerous. Do not tell him it was me who tipped you off - say Juno told you, I don’t care. Just don’t say it was me. And he ain’t always easy to get a hold of, so good luck.” She scribbles something down on a piece of paper and passes it to Rita.

Rita seizes it, clutches it to her chest, and then in a fit of gratitude she throws her arms around Vicky. 

“Thank you!” She shrieks, “thank you, thank you, I won’t let you down, I owe you big time, thank you - “

“Yeah, you don’t owe me nothing,” Vicky disentangles herself and points towards the door. “People who actually look out for each other in this city are too few and far between. Now get going.” 

 

Rita calls Octavius Green. And calls. And calls. 

Then she calls the cops. 

Then, when none of that looks promising at all, she sits down and does what she does best. She goes hunting for details. 

The name Octavius Green takes her to an offshore bank account that, when she finally gets through their firewall, is actually registered to the name Ira Hill. Ira Hill briefly had a talk radio show broadcast from Neptune - Rita listens for a few episodes and pretty quickly picks up the string of numbers hidden in the commercial breaks that she thinks at first is a phone number but then figures out are intergalactic coordinates on Vexius 8. The coordinates are for a fancy beach condo house listed to the name Augustus Major, and Rita finds one blurry photo of him in the house’s security feed, which has been meticulously scrubbed clean.

Tall. Dark hair, dark eyes. He’s in motion, in the image, so she can’t make out his face. But he looks familiar, somehow. Rita tries to backtrack on every search platform she knows to find more, and turns up with nothing, but she knows he looks familiar. 

She heads into the office, two days of little sleep, to cross-reference some files there because she’s out of options and she doesn’t know what else she can do - and she finds Juno asleep on the couch. 

He looks like shit. Bony, unshaven, bruised. The whole room stinks. There’s a swath of bandages around the right side of his face obscuring his right eye, but his left is ringed with dark purple circles of exhaustion. 

He blinks at her, at the bright light coming in from the open door, and stumbles up off the couch like a dead man learning to walk. He looks unhinged and unwell and if she’d passed him on the street Rita wonders if she would even have known who she was looking at. But still, he’s here, Juno, in one piece or at least breathing, and that’s a place to start, better than nothing. Better than she feared. 

“Guess you didn’t close the place up after all,” he says, and his voice is like sandpaper. “When you gonna start listening to me?” 

“Never ever,” Rita says tremulously, and she promptly bursts into tears.

 

In the made-for-TV-movie version of this story, Juno would sulk heroically for a few weeks, and Rita would confront him, and they’d have a dramatic heart-to-heart and things would go back to normal. 

Rita knows real life doesn’t work that way. But sometimes she wishes things weren’t quite so far off.

In real life, Juno goes missing for two weeks and comes back with nothing but a painful-looking mess of scar tissue in a hollow space where one of his bright blue eyes used to be, and he never tells Rita what happened while he was away. And there’s nothing heroic about his sulking, either. It starts out vicious, self-sabotaging and manic and overexcited, and it doesn’t fade so much as it drops and lingers and stews. 

And he doesn’t talk about it. It just sits in the middle of everything, the scar tissue on his face covered up by an eyepatch he wears as it starts to heal, and Rita gets angrier and angrier. 

She wishes she wasn’t angry. She doesn’t like feeling that way. Juno seems to live off of his anger, a sullen internal energy with an endless supply, but it just makes her feel tired and mean. 

She asks, once, when Juno accidentally smacks the right side of his face against a doorframe, drops a glass bottle, and then leans his head out the office window to yell at nobody in particular, “Boss, are you, you know? Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” Juno says, his composure regained. He says it too fast, like he doesn’t believe himself. 

“Okay,” Rita says, “just, something happened, and I’m just asking - “

“I’m fine, Rita. Really,” Juno snaps, in his do-not-test-me voice, so Rita drops it. 

 

She doesn’t bring it up again, even when she really wants to. 

And then, Juno misses a shot. 

Juno doesn't miss shots. Maybe once, ever, but then he nailed the one immediately after that. They drive home and he follows Rita upstairs to the office mechanically, like he's in shock. Pours himself a drink mechanically and swallows it like he's not even sure he's tasting it. 

Rita keeps talking. She talked all through the drive even though she has no idea what to say because she doesn't know what else to do.

"It's not impossible," she's chattering, tidying files and turning off Juno's computer and closing cabinets. "Loads of people do all sorts of things with one eye. Or one leg, or one hand, or all of the above. Not that it's gonna be the same, Mister Steel, but you gotta try. Right? You just gotta work at it."

"Rita," Juno is sitting on the chairs that serve as a waiting space for any clients who might be here a few at a time. Recently, that hasn't been many. "Shut up." 

"There is no need for that, Mister Steel," Rita slams a drawer closed with a little more force than is necessary. "All I'm saying is - "

"You think I just popped into existence knowing how to shoot in a straight line?" Juno barks, and he takes off his jacket and hurls it towards his desk. It falls considerably short. "You think it was easy? This isn't the kind of thing you just get back with a little practice. That's not how the world works, okay? About time you realized that." 

Rita closes another drawer. Her jaw is very tight. She's angry. She's been angry for a while and she doesn't know what to do about it. 

"You don't know til you try," she says, slowly. 

"Whatever," Juno says. 

Rita thinks about leaving it. Going home, leaving him to it, cleaning up the mess in the morning. 

"Mister Steel," she says, instead, "you ever gonna tell me what happened?" Her voice feels unsteady saying it, like it's a taboo. The big scorpion in the room, Juno's scarred face and his dark moods and the fact that he never seems to sleep and the one time when he dropped off at his desk and woke up yelling. 

Juno makes a noise, a derisive one. 

"It's none of your business," he says. 

And Rita loses her cool.

"What did you say?" she says, and she turns around from the desk very slowly.

"Said it's none of your business," Juno repeats. 

"You are," Rita says, and her voice feels sticky, "the worst sometimes." 

She stops, taken aback that she said it out loud. Juno looks up at her, opens his mouth like he's going to tell her off. But somehow saying the words was the start of something, because Rita finds she can't stop. 

"I try not to worry about stuff I don't got a lot of control over," she says, her words sticky and tripping over each other, inelegant. "My mother always told me there's no reason to lose your head over things you can't control, but I couldn't help it. I suppose that something awful happened with that crazy Martian lady but I can't go on pretending like things are just like they were, Mister Steel, when they're not because I'm a secretary not an actor. That's not what you pay me for and if you want an actor then you should go hire one but I can't! I spent two weeks telling myself I shouldn't worry 'cause sometimes this happens, all your friends say sometimes this just happens and I should just wait and it's gonna be fine. And I spend the last few months telling myself I shouldn't worry 'cause you said you were fine, and you don't wanna talk about it and you just wanna work and I'm your friend! But you vanished for two weeks and you told me you were worried and there's some guy with a bunch of fake names who doesn't actually exist as far as I can tell and then you show up here again missing an eye and you want everyone to act like nothing happened and I can't! And it is my business, it is, 'cause you are literally my boss!" 

Rita grinds to a halt, afraid for a terrible second that she's going to cry. She's breathing hard. Her hands hurt because they're clenching her own elbows hard enough to bruise. 

Juno stares at her like she's grown a second head and she waits for the comeback, for his anger, for the inevitable mean, witty response he's been saving up because Juno Steel always has the last word. 

But it doesn't come.

His face crumples in on itself, slowly, and Rita thinks she's never seen anything quite so horrifying. 

"I think," he says slowly, "that maybe you outta consider another line of work." His head drops slowly towards his knees. "The meter's running out on this one, and I hear there's no tenure." 

Rita feels deflated, anger gone. It's replaced by nothing but a kind of ugly ache. She crosses the room and sits on the little narrow chair next to Juno.

"Don't think so," she says. "I have pretty high job satisfaction, actually. Except for those asshole in HR, they make my life miserable."

Juno laughs a little, weakly.

"You're supposed to say that it's only funny when you say it," Rita adds.  

"That one was pretty good, actually," Juno says. He rubs the bridge of his nose, the scar under his eye. 

"Sorry," Rita says. 

"I tried to read the mind of a crazy Martian anthropologist who turned into a tentacle monster," Juno says, "and it blew up."

Rita frowns at him. "You know," she says, "I think you better come up with a better story for when people ask. Like, you wrestled a shark."

"I don't know what I'm gonna do," Juno says. His voice is tiny, and raw, and Rita thinks she's never heard him sound quite so like himself since before he went missing. "I really don't. I think this - I don't know, Rita. I don't know."

Rita puts her hand on his knee. It's a tiny gesture that shouldn't be strange but is. Rita's a hugger. Juno isn't. It means something big, that he doesn't shrug her off. That he's accepting that comfort. That there's a line between "people you work with" and "people you're friends with."

"I do," Rita says.

Juno looks at her, like he's looking at her for answers. Usually, she thinks, its the other way around.

"We're gonna do what we always do, boss," Rita says as firmly as she knows how. She squeezes his knee. "We're gonna figure it out." 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The thing about life is that it keeps going, no matter the twists it throws at you. Missing eyeballs, corrupt politicians, family secrets, that string of real disappointing dates Rita went on, the time she got kidnapped, the time Juno saved the planet, that awful series finale - twists and turns and some things stay constant. 

Like the boss’s ability to absolutely lose his cool about things that are, firstly, largely inconsequential and, secondly, are only a teeny bit Rita’s fault and are also kind of his. A bit. It is his bulletproof vest, after all, not hers. She keeps hers in her underwear drawer, which is where any sensible person keeps a bulletproof vest. 

So he’d forgotten his at the apartment, and Rita was supposed to go get it dry-cleaned after the last case but hadn’t, and they need it because a gun-toting arsonists is on the run. And Rita thinks that even though she is grateful things hadn’t ended worse with the mayor and the boss’s fake eye and that woman with one ear and everything, Juno isn’t any less of a pain in the ass.

Maybe more so - because recently he’s been cheerful about something, which really just throws her for a loop. 

“Not in my job description to go hunting through your apartment,” Rita mutters to herself as she unlocks the door and scouts around the room. The vest isn’t anywhere visible so she’s really going to have to look, and she’s on a deadline, because in about twenty minutes Juno’s going to show up here ready to roll and he’s going to need his vest if he doesn’t want to get shot again.

Rita doesn’t want him to get shot again.

Well, not really. 

“Stupid case,” Rita mutters to herself, tossing Juno’s spare duster and a pile of clean unfolded laundry and a stack of museum blueprints off his bed and out of the way. “Stupid emergency. Stupid bullet-proof vest. Stupid boss.” The vest isn’t on the bed and Rita eyes the pile of unwashed laundry hanging out of the slotted rack in the wall, the one that sends it tumbling down into the automatic washer when a button gets pressed.

“No,” Rita says decisively. “I don’t get paid enough for that. Nuh-huh.” 

She does hit the button on the rack though, to send the laundry where it ought to go, then dusts her hands off before turning back to the inset closet in Juno’s kitchen. It rotates to maximize space, half shelving that’s being used as a combination pantry and weapons locker, and the other half an open space for coats and shoes, which is being used as a combination closet and weapons locker. Rita starts poking through the jackets and coats, one good wool sweater and one very bright suit she’s never seen Juno wear, looking for the vest, when she hears a noise from the other room. 

It sounds like the shutter on the window rattling against the frame. There’s a wind in the city today, lifting dust and debris. She’d seen a red funnel cloud off over the horizon when she’d left her apartment that morning. 

“Silly Mister Steel,” Rita rolls her eyes. “Leaving his windows open when a dust storm’s coming.” And she abandons the search to go close the window not realizing, until she already walked into the bedroom, that she’d been in that room a moment before and had seen the window was closed. 

She stops dead inside the door, her heart suddenly unpleasantly fast in her chest. 

And the man who currently has one leg through the window of Juno’s third-floor apartment stops too. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, dust swirling in through the gap. Then Rita’s brain catches up with her eyes. 

“Special Agent Glass?” she says. 

“I trust you know that I’m not actually a special agent of anything,” Glass says, not moving, with one leg hoisted over the windowsill and the other presumably dangling in space outside the window. 

“Oh, right,” Rita says, then clears her throat. “Uh, Mister Glass?” 

“Yes?”

“You’re climbing in Mister Steel’s window.”

“Yes, I am.” 

“The door’s right over there.” Rita points, helpfully. “There’s even an elevator. It works sometimes. Not right now, but sometimes.” 

“Thank you, I’ll remember that.” 

“Um,” Rita has to ask. “Is this a burglary?” 

“No!” Glass holds out one hand and wobbles rather precariously on the window until he grabs at the sill. “ Not this time, anyway.” 

“I think you better come inside, Mister Glass,” Rita says, “before you fall out. How’d you climb up the side of that anyway? Ooh - did you use suction cups? I saw this documentary once, about this guy who would climb up tall glass buildings with suction cups attached to his knees - “ 

Mister Glass tumbles somewhat inelegantly through the open window, pulling a coil of rope inside the window with him.. He rises, much more elegantly, brushes dust off his knees and shuts the window and coughs a few times. 

“I imagine suction cups would be a great deal of physical effort,” he says. “And they’d make quite a bit of noise. There’s a magnet attached to this, see? Very simple, with a bit of climbing.” 

“Wow,” Rita peers at it. “That’s pretty impressive, Mister Glass, you must have strong arms. Do you do a lot of rock climbing? The door is still right over there, you know, and it works fine even if you gotta walk up the stairs to get to it.” 

“Yes, well,” Glass shakes dust from his hair. He’s dressed in very dark purple, a striking suit with a large lapel that makes him look more like a movie star than a special agent. It suits him much more than the Dark Matters uniform, that’s for sure. “There’s a camera on the street, you see. Right outside the entrance to the building.” 

“Oh,” Rita says. “Are you shy? You don’t look like a guy who’s shy, in that suit, but you can’t judge a book by its cover, that’s what my ma used to say.” 

“Something like that,” Glass says, and he makes a face like he wants to smile but doesn’t. 

“Well, anyway, Mister Steel ain’t here right now,” Rita says. “Didn’t you call ahead? We’re in the middle of a case, actually. I’m supposed to be finding his bullet-proof vest before he gets here which is like twenty minutes away, and I got no idea where it is at all.” 

“I noticed,” Glass says, looking around. Rita’s not sure if he means he’s noticed Juno’s not here, or that she hasn’t found the vest in the cluttered apartment, but they’re kind of the same thing. “It was a bit spontaneous, I admit. A job I was working concluded early. I was hoping to catch Juno by surprise. When he’s scared he makes this screaming sound that is exactly like a little kid, it’s hilarious.”

“Funniest thing I ever heard,” Rita says, because it is. “Do you, uh - “ she pauses because she doesn’t really know this guy, not really, just a vague inkling of context and a half-familiar voice out of Juno’s office every now and then and a few suspiciously long weekends away where he’d give her Mondays off without even complaining about it. “You want me to leave a message?”

“That’s quite alright,” Glass says quickly. “I suppose I’ll just wait, until he’s finished with the case. What kind of case is it? Something difficult?” 

“Oh, just an arson,” Rita shrugs. “And the guy who did it, we know who it is ‘cause we’re good at this, Mister Glass, better than the HCPD anyway and they’re gonna wanna take all the credit which is why we’re in a hurry. But this guy’s also a gun runner, and he burned down this building to cover his tracks! A whole building! People really outta learn to delete security footage if you ask me. So we gotta catch up with him before he shoots someone, or burns something else down, or makes some money. Say, you don’t see a bullet-proof vest around here, do you?”

“Just an arson,” Glass says faintly, then he shakes his head. “Well, since I’m here I may as well help you look. If I was a bullet-proof vest where would I hide?”

“I’ve gone through all the obvious places,” Rita says. “And his office.” 

“The closet?”

“Checked there.” 

“His laundry?”

“Not in my pay grade, thank you very much.” 

“Under the bed, perhaps.”

“That has potential.” Rita navigates around Glass, who sets down the rope and little bag he’s carrying with a sigh and runs his long fingers through his hair. She kneels to peer under Juno’s bed, sees a great deal of junk but nothing that resembles the vest, and straightens with a sigh. 

“No luck?”

“Nothing. Say, Mister Glass,” Rita starts, and tries very hard not to sound suspicious even though she feels a bit suspicious. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Juno - she does, with a great many things including her life - but she doesn’t always trust the decisions he makes in regards to himself. Which is why she sticks around. That and the pay isn’t bad. 

“Yes?” Glass is looking through Juno’s closet, and Rita comes to the sudden realization for whom the very bright suit hanging there is probably designed to fit. It makes her feel a little angry, or perhaps protective, but also a little proud because the migration of someone else’s suit to your closet is a physical sign of something, even if she can’t say exactly what. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, and I’m only asking cause I’m curious, what is it that you do? You know, since you’re not a real fake secret agent.” 

“A real fake secret agent?” 

“Well, I mean, Mister Steel bought it,” Rita says, as she turns around and considers other places to look. “But the boss is kinda dense about things sometimes, especially where good-looking people are concerned.” 

“But you’re not dense, are you,” Glass says, and he’s looking at her quite intently. He has eyes like a hawk, or some other predator. 

“Not that you didn’t look good!” Rita says quickly, in case she’s hurting his feelings. “And the sunglasses inside were a nice touch, Dark Matters regulation and all that, but the fact is that no actual real secret agent looks that good in the uniform. They just don’t. That’s how you spot a fake.” 

“Well,” Glass says, and he runs his thumb over his chin. “The entirety of Dark Matters didn’t catch on to the fact that Secret Agent Rex Glass sprang into existence two years before he took the entrance exam and then flew his way to a specialist position at an uncanny speed. But you did?”

“Well, the entirety of Dark Matters are pretty stupid, aren’t they?” 

“They have their moments, certainly, and absolutely nothing on you.” Glass is still looking at her, contemplatively. “And to answer your question, I dabble. I do a bit of everything. Art dealing. Restaurant reviewing. Recently I’ve been into architecture.”

“Ooh, so you’re independently wealthy?” 

“Not independently, no. I’ve worked very hard for it.” 

“Ooh, so you’re wealthy?” 

“Am I being interviewed?” Glass says, “or interrogated? I feel as though it could be either and I’m not sure which.”

“Uh,” Rita says, “both.”

“Should I prepare for a job interview,” Glass asks, “or an arrest?”

“That depends on your answers.” Rita, committing to this, sits on the bed and crosses one leg over the other in a way she hopes is impressive and intimidating. 

“I suppose,” Glass sits too, and he mirrors her posture. He has very expensive dark leather shoes on. “I suppose this is about Juno.” 

“The boss is kinda dense about some things,” Rita repeats, “especially where good-looking people are concerned.”

“And you’re not.”

“Well,” Rita says, “I mean, I definitely have my weaknesses. You’re good-looking, Mister Glass, but you’re not really my type.” 

“You want to know my intentions.” Glass crosses his arms and does that thing with his mouth again, like he’s not sure if he wants to smile or if he wants that smile to be threatening. 

“I guess so,” Rita says. “All I know is you were around before, ages ago, and the minute you walked in here Mister Steel got all moony and snappy and he stopped trying to climb out a window, which, I mean, you know Mister Steel. That’s not a small feat. And he doesn’t really do that. Sometimes, sure, but not very much, especially considering his history and all.”

Glass opens his mouth like he wants to ask what this means and Rita decides, for once, to keep those details to herself, because she only kind of has the scope of Juno’s trainwreck of an almost-marriage and it really isn’t her business, and anyway it’s very sad and will just bring down the mood.

“Anyway,” she says, “he was all twitterpated and then you two solved the Kanagawa case and then you weren’t really with Dark Matters and you stole that mask and took off and he moped. For months. Well, it felt like months. Coulda been a few weeks, I don’t know.” 

“I see,” Glass says, and he starts to say something else but Rita’s not done.

“And then,” she continues, “when he went missing I ran all over the city trying to figure out where the hell he’d gone and what the hell that crazy voicemail he’d left me meant, and Valles Vicky said she’d put him in contact with someone she knew called Green, or something - “

“Octavius,” Glass says quickly, and Rita can tell she’s caught him off guard. “Yes, an old friend.” 

“I think you’ve got a twin, Mister Glass. Or a clone. Or you were involved in that too, the boss losing his eye and coming back here, and I know he’s not always the most cheerful of people but he was messed up. And maybe you were too, he didn’t exactly tell me what happened, and things with Mister Steel are always twice as complicated as he wants you to think when he feels bad about something.”

“Rita,” Glass says, “you’re quite a detective.” 

Rita files the compliment away for later. “What I’m saying is I know you two got history. And it hasn’t always gone down super great.” 

“You’re worried about him,” Glass says, and his eyes are soft. 

“Course I am! He’s my boss. He’s the closest thing I got to family. Except, you know, my actual family, but truth be told I like Mister Steel better most of the time.”

Glass studies her, for a long moment. Rita finds she’s getting a handle on his face. It often seems like he’s thinking one thing while looking like something else entirely, probably on purpose.

“Rita,” Glass says, finally, “are you a native of Mars? Have you lived anywhere else?” 

“Nope,” Rita says. “Born and raised. My ma was born over in Olympus Mons, actually, but she’s got a phobia of volcanos so she moved. I’ve been offworld for vacations and stuff!” 

“I’m not,” Glass says.    


“From Mars? I knew that.” 

“Born and raised anywhere, I mean.” 

“I mean, you were born somewhere. Everyone is.” 

“I haven’t been back there for a very long time,” Glass says, and something in his eyes gets glassy and strange. “I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t often stay in one place, you see. There’s a great deal of delight in seeing how expansive the universe is, how many different people live in it. Always finding someone new, someplace amazing, something you’ve never seen before.” 

“That sounds pretty amazing,” Rita considers, “for a while, I mean. I always get homesick when I’m gone long though. Doesn’t that get lonely?” 

“Sometimes,” Glass says, and that expression doesn’t leave his face. “I’ve got another question for you.” 

“I’m an open book,” Rita says.    
  
“Have you ever been in love?” 

“Sure,” Rita shrugs. “Loads of times. Not really at the moment, I guess, and I’m trying to focus on me and not worry about it too much. I know what I like, see, and you gotta let people down gently even when they start to bore you after a few weeks when you’ve gotten all the good stuff outta the way and then you realize that they don’t like Mars Defenders. You ever heard such a thing? Not liking Mars Defenders. Best TV show there is. Sounds like you meet an awful lot of people too, Mister Glass.”

“I do,” Glass says, and he does smile, sideways and small. “And you are right. Often when you get the fun bits out of the way you hardly mind leaving them behind, especially with the knowledge that there will always be somebody more exciting to meet somewhere.” 

“Uh huh,” Rita says slowly. She thinks about adding that none of that better be about Mister Steel, but decides its implied. 

“And then sometimes,” Glass says, “you meet somebody and you know the minute you meet them that you’ll never meet anybody like that ever again, no matter where you go, as long as you live.”

“Mister Steel’s pretty unforgettable,” Rita agrees, “especially when he yells.” 

“And that makes you realize,” Glass continues, still smiling just a little, “that you were lonely, and that there’s something bigger you could be a part of, and that you want to return somewhere even though it’s not in your nature. Which makes you want to try for something that isn’t easy, because the best things aren’t."

"Wow," Rita says.

"Does that answer your question?”

“Mister Glass,” Rita says, and she says it very firmly and very quietly.

“Yes, Rita?” Glass looks nervous. 

“That was,” Rita whispers, and she claps her hands over her face, “hands down, the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. And I watch a lot of TV.” 

“Let’s keep it between us, alright?” Glass says, and he lets out a very deep breath.

“I’m great with secrets,” Rita says. “And anybody who can talk about Mister Steel like that especially after seeing him yell is alright by me.” 

“Glad that’s settled,” Glass says, and he holds out his hand, and they shake.

And then Rita’s comms beep. 

“Oh, shoot!” she leaps up. “Mister Steel’s almost here and I haven’t found that vest yet and he’s gonna be so mad at me - “

“Check in the couch cushions,” Glass suggests. When Rita looks, that’s right where it is. She’s lifting it triumphantly when the apartment door flies open. 

Juno, out of breath, barrels through the door, starts to say something, sees who is in the room, opens his mouth and then closes it again. 

“Uh,” he says. He looks at them - Rita holding the vest and an umbrella, smiling, and Mister Glass in his debonair suit leaning against the kitchen counter. He looks at them twice. Then a third time. "Uh," he says again. 

“Hi Mister Steel!” Rita says. “Mister Glass crawled in your bedroom window and I caught him but don’t worry, he wasn’t trying to rob you.” 

"Oh," Juno says, blinking. He looks like he's at a loss for words, for once, and Rita thinks that there must really be something about this Mister Glass because most people, even the good-looking ones, just make Juno talk more. "Good. The window?"

"Yep," Rita says. "With a suction cup."

"A suction cup." 

"Yep."

"And he wasn't trying to rob me?"

"That's what he said!"

"Did you check his pocket?"

"Should I have?" Rita looks over at Glass, who shrugs. "Want me to?"

"We are in a hurry, aren't we?" Glass crosses the room in two strides. He looks very tall next to Juno, and Juno feels tall next to Rita next time which is all her mother's genetic's fault.

“Didn’t expect you ‘til next week,” Juno says gruffly. Rita thinks he sounds put out about it, or relieved. It’s hard to tell.

“Oh, well,” Glass shrugs elegantly, “I finished scouting early. I’ll have to head back in a week and a half to finish up the job, of course, but I hardly had anywhere else I need to be.” 

“Oh, for your building?” Rita asks, and they both turn to stare at her. 

“Building.”

“‘Cause you said you’re an architect.” 

“An architect,” Juno says slowly, and this time he really is put out. 

“I do know a great deal about blueprints,” Glass says, and grins disarmingly. 

“Yeah, and I’m a doctor now ‘cause I’m really great at knowing where it’ll hurt the most to get stabbed,” Juno lets out a massive sigh that travels up his whole body. “Did he tell you he’s an actor too, Rita?” 

“Ooh, no!” Rita perks up. “Really? How do you know so many actors, Mister Steel?” 

“Yeah!” Juno says. “See, his face was broadcast on screens all over a whole planet once.”

“Oh, more than once,” Glass says, sounding insulted. “At least six times. Do you know many actors?”

“They gravitate towards despair,” Juno says, at the same time Rita says, “I think they like his eyebrows.” 

They blink at each other. Then Juno tosses his hands up.

“We don’t have time for this. Rita, did you find that vest? You - you coming? This case doesn’t understand that you got here early so you either gotta come along or go amuse yourself in a legal fashion for a while.” 

“Oh, your arsonist?” Glass asks. “I’ve never met an arsonist before. I suppose that could be exciting, and you may have a use for a man who knows his way around some blueprints.” 

“Fine. Get in the car, we gotta go and we gotta go now. Rita?” Juno, looking at Glass, waves his hand out for the vest. Rita tries and fails to pass it over to him. 

“Should I be armed?” 

“Absolutely not. Rita!” 

“Mister Steel!” Rita tosses the vest onto his head. 

“Oh. Thanks.”

“It was in your couch.” 

“Huh,” Juno pulls off his coat to shrug the vest on. 

“And Mister Steel - “

“Rita, we’re in a hurry.”

“My bets are on the school.” 

He peers back over his shoulder at her. “Really? That’s what you think?” 

“Yes,” Rita says. “I’ve decided. You sticking with the munitions factory?” 

“Oh yeah,” Juno says. “This guy wants to make a scene, not hurt anyone. No way he’s gonna burn down a school. It’s your funeral.”

“When I win,” Rita says, “I get next Monday off.” 

“And when I win,” Juno counters, “you’re paying my tab at Shorty’s.” 

“Mister Steel that’s like a couple hundred bucks!”

“If you don’t wanna play we don’t have to - “

“You’re on,” Rita marches towards the door. 

“You’re betting on - your suspect’s target?” Glass’s eyebrows are in his hairline.

“Yeah,” Juno says. “Gotta keep it interesting somehow.”

“A bit morbid but I see the potential.” 

“If you want it there’s still time,” Rita suggests. “He’s also threatened a city park. And the HCPD offices downtown.”

“Definitely the cops,” Glass says. 

“We have to go,” Juno zips his jacket back up. “Now.”

“Wait, Mister Steel?” 

“What, Rita?” 

“I sent all those files you asked for to your comms.” 

“Oh. Thanks, Rita.” 

“And one more thing, Mister Steel - “

“What now!”

“Rain’s in the forecast so I grabbed your umbrella for when we’re going home.” 

“We’re going to solve an arson,” Juno snaps, “I don’t need an umbrella.” But he takes it anyway, tucks it grumpily under the crook of his arm.

“And Mister Steel - “ 

“What, Rita, what, what?” Juno, halfway to the door, gestures wildly with the umbrella.

“I know you’re thinking it and that you won’t say it so I’m just gonna say it for you so you don’t forget in the future.” 

“What’s that, Rita?” Juno hands the umbrella to Glass, who looks much more debonair holding it jauntily under one arm, and puts his hands on his hips.

“Just that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you and you wouldn’t know what you would do without me,” Rita says. “Now, are we gonna go stop an arson or what? Arsoner? Arsonagist?” 

Mister Glass starts laughing. He’s got a nice laugh, only a little diabolical, and Rita thinks it would do well in one of those roles where you think someone’s a bad guy only to find out they’ve got a much more complicated history than you thought and so maybe you sympathize with them a little bit. 

And Juno sighs, and then he smiles. Just a little and just for a second, but Rita knows it’s the kind of smile that means he actually means it, and not the kind he uses when he’s being sarcastic, or mean, or he’s faking his way through something. She knows that because it only lasts for a second, and it sticks around in his eyes after it’s gone, and also because it’s the kind of thing you learn about someone when you know them for a long time. Like they’ve known each other, filing away quirks and preferred takeout orders and how they like their coffee, with the knowledge that there will always be something that’ll pop up and surprise them both.

There's a certain kind of knowledge you settle into, when you've known someone for over a decade. This far down the line, Rita can't imagine things any other way.

It’s how Rita knows that the suit hanging in Juno’s closet is a really big deal, and how she knows he’d never say this kind of thing out loud even if he means it, even if he wants to, and how she knows he knows she likes coffee milkshakes from the place down the street when she’s had a bad day. 

“Rita,” Juno says, and the smile is gone but there’s a light in his eye, and Rita knows what he’s going to say next because he always does, “go get in the car.” 

“Aye, aye, boss,” Rita says, because she always does. 

She does pause in the doorway to turn and nod at Mister Glass, who has stopped laughing and is holding the door open and giving Juno a look that’s something out of one of those really romantic streams - if he can look like that, Rita thinks, neither of them have to say a word. 

“Mister Glass,” she says, “just so you know? You probably wanna buckle your seat belt on our drive, cause I don’t know about you but Mister Steel’s real good at some real creative driving and it’s just terrible for my nerves.”    


“Hey!” Juno says, like she knew he would, and Rita cackles as she leads the way down the stairs to the waiting car on the street.  

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
